‘Be who you are and say what you feel ’cause people who mind don’t matter, and people who matter don’t mind.’-Dr. Seuss

Photos from a live Nativity reenactment in Alpine, Tx, last night in freezing weather…

Sometimes I think I try too hard to understand my own feelings too deeply, often others when such are exposed. This Journey has brought up a raw layer of myself up to a surface not often looked upon in the past. We are each a fine fingerprint of Life, everyone so different as a magical array within this humanity of ours. I dig deeper and deeper, wanting to know why?… and how? I often tell myself to leave it alone. Just live… so many facets make so much sense, and some just don’t, they so much don’t make sense that I think it is the only reason a dog puts up with me and not another Human Being such as in a “companion” through Life. She would have to be for sure a very “special”, for lack of better word, person to feel as I do. It is even beyond feeling, it encompasses our physical logistics crisscrossing those paths laid out ahead of us. Imagine being here on this we are calling our “Oasis”, honestly the comforts are here and not lacking as long as we go to town a couple times a month, no hardship there, the air is pure, all is quiet, good Friends we call Family surrounds us for these few months. Spirit is in Dog Heaven, free to run, so free that I could not even find his leash a couple days ago. Camping at its best if we can call it that. The “swimming hole” only a few miles away, 1400 miles of Terlingua Ranch dirt roads, Big Bend National Park, a State Park we have never even been in, Chinati Hot Springs… another luscious Oasis not too far, Alpine and so much more such as Midland, Stanton, old railroad towns I would like to go and explore… and… I keep thinking… lets go to California! Death Valley… Anza Borrego… Yes, awesome places, but why? why now?

Adventures, unknown roads, vision resting on never seen before sights of Nature, senses captured and driven by this pure adrenaline that runs in me when the wind blows against us or with us no matter when the wheels are rolling. I am on fire and the coals are never cold and yet… hundreds, more probably, would give so much to be able to just come here for a bit, even if a few days. It is inbreed in me as the ancient Bedouins, as the Gypsies that roamed Europe, as the Vagabonds, those road warriors that would never give up their Lifestyle. The drifters that cannot stand long enough for their roots to take in the fertile grounds they step on. It is always “around the next bend”, “over the next hill”, the four way dusty intersection where one stops and leaves in all four directions. And at the same time I feel settled on the road, settled as ever I could be, that is my first clue while being here as maybe… I feel “too” settled”. Someone told me the other day “this land does not own you”, and how true it is even if as that coin rolls in at times whispering about the other side being greener!

I write so often only to make sense within myself as if these words would talk back to me and lay out some logic for these days. And they do! They do as also your comments do. Years pass, we grow old, from youth to ancient and I realized more and more that I truly had not learned much of anything besides the blurry high speed cruising down the highway of Life we embrace at birth. And so every day if I can catch up on better beliefs, on undoing this programming we have been subjected to for so many years, that is what I try. I am who I am… you are all who you are and it is a “beautiful thing” as they say.

Just as beautiful as the day was yesterday, when the coin yelled “stay here, I don’t want to roll away for a while!”. Two “clowns” from England, I meant to “riding travelers”, Dan and Jacquie, have stopped here visiting Paul and Voni up the road, Big Bend and the area, staying of course at the Cowhead Ranch as described a couple Blogs ago. Europeans travel the World as much as we travel our own Country. They have seen Vietnam, Thailand, Africa and more countries that I can remember. They purchased a Harley upon their arrival in Florida and on to the West Coast, South America… they go.

They had joined us for the Fire Dance evening where we met for the first time, but spending all afternoon and evening together including a few hours in a car takes on a totally different meaning! “Silly”? “Dry and wicked humor?”… wish we had recorded those hours as I have not laughed this much and this hard in a long time. As today we are in on this cold day with a sky blanketed with gray clouds and no sun, I was thinking what a therapy “laughter” can be! Like a medicine taking over the moment and filling the senses with such a positive aspect of Life bringing in such a great realization that “people” can so much be the key of someone’s well being.

Photo courtesy of Voni Glaves

Can I say “I needed that” with no fear of being selfish? I did! It has overlapped to these present hours and now even looking forward to a Christmas Evening get together up the road with the same cast of characters and more! My coin was right expressing itself, this side of it just could not get any greener. We had a nice lunch around the fire, an event that I like to keep going, meaning that as long as we spend the day here there will be food and homemade bread waiting for anyone passing by. Hungry and cold, this is where to stop and dog overly friendly for that matter also.

Of course the day would not be filled without showing them the “swimming hole”. The real side of the back country stage of Texas here. I like by now to see everyone’s amazement on their faces, their appreciation for the beauty that lays within that very special space of ours. The clowning does not stop, did not stop…

They like it so much here that they will be staying around through Christmas Day now, I have the feeling that they also will be back, the spirituality of Big Bend, it’s beauty has a way with most, a way we do not need to understand, but just enjoy and accept. We did! This is our third time back here ourselves and not the last.

Voni’s walking buddy “Tracy” also was with us, and for as many years as she has lived here had never seen the “swimming hole”. Spirit? Well… spirited as ever, every day his love and affection for others is taking a step up, so much that his images from years past when saved from his faith always come back to mind with a big smile on my face. I still remember the words of others within those times “do not want this dog Ara…”, “I would never take a Pit Bull on the road as you are going to…”. I have never enjoyed his company as much as we do now, the crescendo of our affection and ties with each other just does not stop climbing throughout these days here.

Fire Dance, food around the fire, Nativity scenes, good Friends, Nature at its best and a buddy with an affection as never felt before… I wish you all the same and much more throughout these Holidays.

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Two years of Photography is finally in order on SmugMug… In “Your Favorites”, in “States”, some labeled “first year” and second year”, now also “Texas the third year”. Feel free to browse, you can even use the slide show mode and have fun.